OnePlus promised to update its first flagship this year to Android 8.0 Oreo before the end of the year. We are December 26 and Carl Pei can proudly say that he has kept his word, although as we will see later on there is a series of “buts” and nuances to be taken into account. If you have the terminal, go looking for the update because it will arrive in OTA shortly.

In addition to this announcement, Carl Pei has announced on Twitter that the OnePlus 5 will receive a function that until now was believed to be exclusive, without any technical background, of the OnePlus 5T model: facial recognition. This addition will come soon and will not come standard with the update they are serving at this time. We have to be patient and for the moment we are left with Oreo and a “soon” for this security function.

Android 8.0 Oreo with possible traces of Nougat

The news of the arrival of a new update is always well received and very positive but the owners of a OnePlus have reason to be a bit suspicious with the team of engineers that is responsible for the software of these terminals. Several Reddit users are complaining about this update and claim that the version of Oreo that is arriving at their terminals is a half-cooked ROM that includes fragments of Android 7.0 Nougat.

At least that’s what several Reddit users report: the settings menu is identical to Nougat, the security patch is in September and not the current, problems with the automatic system that turns on the screen when we take the terminal. At the moment it is only opinions that are coming out without much more information so we will have to take it with tweezers.

Keep in mind that this situation has already occurred with the beta of Oreo in the OnePlus 3T so it is possible that the Chinese company has returned to follow the same strategy when it comes to updating this year’s model. If you are going to update, be careful because if the starting point is the same as in Q3, we can find important problems. In fact, OnePlus had to withdraw that update because of the number of complaints it was receiving.

Facial recognition will come soon

Carl Pei has been quite brief in his communication and in addition to wish us happy holidays he has limited himself to tell us that the function of facial recognition will come soon, without providing many more details. According to the head of OnePlus, the high demand for this function has caused them to rethink their introduction because what we knew so far is that it did not fit into the plans:

Due to popular demand, Face Unlock is coming for the OnePlus 5. Thanks for the feedback, and merry Christmas! 🎅🎄🎁

What we get clear, however, with this future update is that the cameras, from OnePlus 5 to OnePlus 5T, do not play a big role when deciding its implementation. Good news for everyone because as we saw in our first impressions and later in the analysis is a technology that works very well.

It does not have as much security as FaceID but fulfills the purpose of being a good alternative to those who do not like the fingerprint reader in the back.